Om Eim Saraswatyei Swaha

I found this mantra in Yoga Journal, with no real background presented, so I went to look it up. I was hoping to find a pronunciation guide beyond the one in yoga journal, or better yet an actual sound-file of it, but no luck. Admittedly, Wikipedia's Sanskrit page might be of use, but there's so much information there that it would take me quite a while to sort through. :^)

This is a mantra to invoke the energy of Saraswatyei: a feminine manifestation of the scholarly and artistic. The page linked to in the title identifies her as a goddess, but I see the gods and goddesses largely as symbols. They have a reality, but they are not the whole of the reality. Rather like words and language. The word stands for something in the language, but it is not the language itself. And, language-wise, I have found chanting in Sanskrit to be deeply soothing and energizing all at once. Back in my pagan days, I read that the reason for spells and such being in archaic languages was so that the analytical part of the brain would be quiet and the imaginative, evocative part of the brain would be active. I think that's what's at work with these Sanskrit mantras. Yes, there is a meaning, and we can look that up, but the words themselves don't have a direct meaning for us. Of course, if I ever get around to learning Sanskrit, that will change. ;^)


(Yeah... I haven't posted anything here for a while. For a while, when I thought about posting, something inside of me would freeze up. Then I didn't seem to have anything to post about. So I'm going to give it a try again and see if I can make this a regular habit once more. I've been wanting to start up for a while, but this is the first thing I found that both felt worth posting and didn't make me freeze up.)